


Halfway There

by rednihilist



Category: Man of Steel (2013)
Genre: Gen, Post-Film
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-13
Updated: 2014-08-13
Packaged: 2018-02-13 01:08:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2131362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rednihilist/pseuds/rednihilist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is Pete Ross.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Halfway There

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Man of Steel and certain characters belong to Warner Bros., Legendary Pictures, Syncopy, DC Entertainment, et al. No profit is gained from this writing—only, hopefully, enjoyment.
> 
> AN: Something I unearthed from lj.

When he's young, he knows every fucking thing there is to know about this shitty town and all the morons in it. He knows all about the world outside, too, the real nitty-gritty facts of life. No one pulls the wool over his eyes. He's on to everyone, especially Kent, who's so freakish he makes anyone standing near him look better in comparison. Pete keeps a real close eye on Kent.

When he's older, he's a little smarter, and he realizes, like that philosopher guy from Ancient times said or whatever, that he doesn't know squat and that nothing ever is certain—at least not in Smallville and probably not outside, either.

But, still, turns out he was right about Kent being a freak—just not really at all, in any way, ever being able to compare to the guy.

***

His dad's been gone four years when the school bus nosedives into the river and Pete has what he'll later refer to as his epic epiphany. That was how he'd measured time back then, not in seasons or school years but in how long things had been—different. He's kind of proud, further down the road, some 20 years after the fact and maybe only 20 pounds lighter, that he'd climbed into that bus that day a little shit and been pulled to shore something else, something a little less pathetic than a run-of-the-mill bully.

His epic epiphany is really just that he's a nobody in a nobody town and that making life worse for others like him, other weirdos, misfits, and nobodies, is kind of a betrayal in a way. Basically, his wake-up call is Kent dragging his ass out of the river despite Pete having been about ten seconds away from saying some truly awful stuff not ten minutes prior. And then the guy won't take Pete's gratitude or his apologies, just brushes it all off with a tight shrug, hunched over like he's a turtle disappearing into its shell.

Then, life goes on, and he ends up in sort of a sad-ass rut of smalltown existence, but he's not too bad off, all things considered. He's got himself a decent, if largely sticky, job, and he's got a few friends he hangs out with, and there's not love or anything, but Pete's not drowning in Smallville. He's not desperate. He's okay.

Life certainly keeps moving forward, and he's no writer, definitely not a poet or anything, but the world to him sometimes seems to act exactly like that bus did That Day, smooth sailing straight ahead like a million times before, only then it will lurch abruptly to the side and fall into a different way of moving altogether. Someone will die unexpectedly, say, like a father, leaving a lot of debt behind and no way out but night shifts and more debt and bankruptcy and no new clothes and bad food and nothing but this pit inside that makes someone ugly and mean. Or, someone always on the outskirts, the oddball, the loner, suddenly returns to town—and turns out to be an actual, honest-to-God extraterrestrial from outerspace. Kent was alienated, all right. He was categorically different, the very definition of otherworldly, but Pete likes to think the grown-up him, the better Pete, the one Kent pulled from that river for no reason other than that he was raised to be a good person—that Pete Ross straightens his spine in the wreckage of the IHOP and doesn't bend over again too easily, at least not when it comes to certain things.

He's without a job all of a sudden, and so the next morning when he wakes up as usual at seven, Pete gets ready and downs an energy drink that he doesn't really need and gets in his little car and heads north of town. He drives for about 15 minutes and then takes the dirt road that leads right to the house and pulls to a stop and just looks.

And it's adult Pete, not shithead-bully Pete, who climbs out and walks up the path and waves at Martha Kent when she raises a hand to block the sun already pounding down as she stares at him approaching.

"Pete!" she says, bewildered but pleasant, and not for the first time is he sad she was always someone else's mom and not his own.

"Uh, hello, Mrs. Kent," he says, and he sounds calm and polite and feels a little proud of himself for playing it cool. "I was just wondering if you needed, uh, some help out—with the house and all."

She smiles some more. "After yesterday, we can probably use all the help we can get."

And just as the screen door behind them swings open and shut, Pete fully registers the plural she'd used and puts two and two together–

"Uh. . . ?" he says, all notions of being suave dying a quick death in that moment, as he turns his head and–

"Hello, Pete," Kent says with a subtle smile, and Pete thinks if they were different people, not who or what they are—not with the history and huge imbalance between them that started the first time Pete glared at Kent for being hated at school just like he was and yet having two awesome parents to go home to like Pete most definitely did not and decided to try and even the score a little—then maybe Kent would've grinned at him or ironically slapped him on the back or bumped him shoulder-to-shoulder like no one ever does to him.

And Pete ruined any chance of that a long time ago, missed the opportunity he just might have had to be a part of something truly—special, but that was then. That was Pete the bully, who didn't handle his dad dying very well at all, who made excuses and lied and tried to play it cool to everyone, especially himself, especially that Kent freak.

But, this is Pete all grown-up. This is Pete meeting Clark Kent's eyes, someone who's the personification of all that's good and kind and hardworking in the world, and smiling back and pushing his glasses up and asking, voice noticeably thready and nervous, "So, where do we start?"

This is Pete Ross. This is Pete, someone who was rescued but who, by God, somehow managed to save his own damn self.


End file.
